Interview With A Bushi
by maryd
Summary: One-shot response to a fanfic challenge. A Masho muses on how the Ningenkai has changed since he left it. Please read & review!


Began:  10/12/2003

Finished:  10/25/2003

Disclaimer:  Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise own Yoroiden Samurai Troopers.  I am in no way profiting off of this.

Challenge:  The society of the Warlords in the Sengoku Period was based on farming rather than on trade.  When the Meiji Revolution started, the shift moved from agriculture to industry.  Write a one-shot from one of the Warlords' perspectives on the sudden rapid growth and the inability to get in touch with nature.

Author's note:  _Bushi_ is the Japanese word for warrior.  This is a response of sorts to Isabel Night's November historical fanfiction challenge on the now defunct Roninfortress.com message board.  Endnotes are included for the reader's reference and are part of the fic.  For some reason, Fanfiction.net uploading is omitting the website addresses of some of my informational sources, specifically in endnotes 1, 4, 7, 11, 12, and 18; email me if you have questions about those endnotes and their subject matter.  I tried to draw off of historical sources as much as possible as Isabel wished; no offense is intended.  The little snippet of conversation of the san-Masho below is taken from Nina's translation of the CD drama Tsuki.  (Email me if you want the website address, because it would not upload with the rest of the fic.) I emailed Nina for permission to use it in this fic, but never got an answer back.

Anubisu:  I'm not corrupted enough to believe that everything will be fine just to defeat them using any method.

_                Naaza:  That's right!  We are bushi as well!_

_                Rajura:  A bushi has a bushi's pride.  Even if we are youja, we will never lose the pride of a bushi._

_                Naaza:  Yes!_

_                                                ---Tsuki_

Interview with a _Bushi_

                _Yamanouchi Naotoki, as the Doku Masho is now addressed, is a tall, well-built, young man with green hair and dark, penetrating eyes.  This humble Yojakai writer had the privilege of meeting the second youngest of the Masho, who gave his consent to be interviewed regarding his background, and his views and visit to the current day Ningenkai.  Clearly the most obedient of the san-Masho, Yamanouchi-sama is also the most adaptable, and perhaps, the most open-minded of the san-Masho concerning the modernity and outside influences of the Ningenkai—and this showed in the Western clothes he was wearing when he appeared for our appointment.  He seems to be naturally taciturn, but in actuality when he speaks, he is also thinking at the same time, and this is facilitated by his slow Kyushu drawl.  However, his eyes are always keen and alert, attesting to his known perceptiveness, and certainly, his noted thoroughness as a warrior in the days of Arago._

[He frowns at the table.]  Is that a tape recorder?  

No, it's all right—leave it on.  What I have to say can be said out loud, and what's done is done, what's past is past.  _Shikata no gai_—it cannot be helped.

                I am a Kyushu _bushi_, born and raised in the South of Japan.  My family is—were—farmer-samurai for generations; we were descended from a minor Yamanouchi branch of the Uesugi clan up in North Honshu, where my ancestors held the post of vice-governor of Kamakura for the Ashikaga Shogunate.[1]  During my time,--er, what the historians now call the _Sengoku Jidai_—the Age of the Country at War—_everyone_ was out to make their fortune by waging battles, becoming a soldier, spying for the clan…[He shrugs.]  My ancestral clan was no exception.

                My family and daimyo we served were also no exception.  From the moment I could hold a stick, I was taught, trained, drilled, prepared, and toughened for battle.  All of the Empire was at war with itself, fighting countless battles for a little more land, a little more _koku,[2]_a castle, a fortress, a fief, a province, a region.  Depending on how far a local lord, or even a daimyo could go, he could become the next Shogun, founding the next dynastic line that would govern the Empire for centuries.

                People suffered, of course.  It is a natural result of war.  Homes and temples burned, people died, entire families were broken apart and loved ones lost.  But there was always that chance to improve one's lot and station in life beyond what his father and grandfather could even think to achieve generations ago.  As long as there was that chance, there was hope.  There was ambition.  [He looks off, almost wistfully.]

                For power.  For peace.

                For order.

                Being a vassal, I fought for my lord and clan, of course, but I wanted more, so much more, for myself, for my family.  For the lord and the clan we served.  For the honor of my ancestors.

                I wanted more, but the entire country would not be at peace with just my and our clan's efforts.  Just defending our region of Kyushu occupied all our efforts.  How could we establish order and harmony if the Empire—our whole world—was in turmoil?

                So when I was thirteen, I joined Arago.

                I had found a leader who had what I was searching for.  My natural devotion to my superiors' command, and my thoroughness, enabled me to be promoted fairly quickly through the ranks.  I was awarded the Doku Yoroi, and named the Doku Masho.  I swore fealty to my lord in the new armor, and this time, we would not bring order to just my homeland, but to the Ningenkai.

                I gave up so much, though at the time, it seemed so little a price to pay for unheard-of power, and the chance to actually live to see Japan finally at peace.

                That peace could not last, though.  But then, humans are inherently immoral creatures—without a strong authority we would cause misery for each other for eternity.

                As we in the Yojakai prepared to take the Ningenkai, those vassals recruited after us gave us news of what had happened in the Ningenkai since I left it.[3]  The most surprising to us, though, was that Japan was finally united under a new Shogun, although now that I think about it, we should have expected this.  Then again, after so many years of battles and struggles for power, it seemed as though no one would be left alive to establish order throughout the country for long.

                Things did not fare so well with both my ancestral clan and the clan I formerly served.  The Yamanouchi-Uesugi had originally backed the loser of the final battle but pledged loyalty to the Tokugawa, so they survived.  But they had to endure the loss of their posts and territories they held for past three hundred years.  The Date clan received their holdings, and the proud Uesugi Yamanouchi, descended from the Fujiwara, the first Regents of Japan, were moved to a small poor fief in north Honshu.[4]  The great daimyo of Kyushu fared a little better—they were also on the losing side, but managed to keep most of their fiefs and territories, but it was still less than what they had originally.

                I did not bother to ask about my family and my former lord.  I already knew what most likely happened to them.  Death is always near a samurai, and it was especially so, while samurai fought and died, fought and ran from lost, bloody, treacherous battles that occurred in the timespan of generations I was away.  

[He looks down, half-musingly.]  Such is the fate of a _bushi_.

                Some two years later, even more surprising news in tantalizing bits and pieces drifted in from the Ningenkai, borne by the newly arriving recruits.  Apparently, the new Bakufu[5] government had run its course in less time my ancestral clan had their governing posts in Kamakura.  But this time, the challenge to the Shogun's authority wasn't just from the military class, but also from the peasant and merchant classes, too.

                It was hard to put it all together, but after looking and thinking on the whole situation, it made perfect sense.  It only confirmed what Arago had told us about prosperity and human nature.

                Under the new Bakufu, peace had run its course.  The founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate had put in some understandable rules at the time to ensure order and control.  Banning all foreigners from Japan, and forbidding any Japanese from returning was reasonable at the time.  But not for two and a half centuries.  [He shakes his head.]  It's never good to cut oneself off, to try to do it oneself.

                The Tokugawa did manage to keep all the daimyo indirectly in control.  I have to say that for them.  It was ingenious, using their pride, time, and money to tie them up.  Every two years, all the daimyo in the land had to visit the Shogun in the new capital in Edo.  Tokyo, you call it now.  Of course, the daimyo had to come with his entourage and staff, and all in appropriate finery.  His family, and their servants, too.  And of course his retainers.  This would help discourage the daimyo from conspiring and hoarding resources against the Shogunate.  The daimyo were also to help contribute to a national emergency fund, for typhoons, earthquakes and the like.  Not to mention national monuments and memorials, of course.  All this and still a daimyo had to maintain the upkeep of his fief and not starve the peasants.  Well, it got so that all the daimyo had to spend more in town than what they harvested and taxed back home in the country, and all the fiefs were in tremendous debt over the centuries.[6]  On a visit to the Ningenkai after the war with Arago, I learned that Yonezawa, that poor little fief the Uesugi were forced to live on, had run into the same problems much earlier than the other fiefs.  Fortunately they had a good leader who helped them survive.[7]  [He snorts.]  Unlike the rest of the country in the Bakufu.

                Because there were no more battles and no more wars, the population of the Japanese Empire increased, of course.  But it seemed as though the nation was finally outgrowing its own land, and since no one could leave Japan and return and stay alive, it was really up to the nation to feed itself.  This was bad, very bad.  Back then, samurai and their lords were paid by rice, _koku_, as a tax levied by the daimyo on the peasants.  If the number of mouths increased, then of course, the peasants (not to mention the other classes) would need more rice to feed themselves.  More mouths meant less rice for everyone else overall, and of course less rice to pay the daimyo.  Of course, money could be used instead.  But apparently, that still wasn't enough.[8]  [He makes a face.]  I hate talking about money—it's ridiculously complicated, and so trivial, and besides, it's the merchant's job.[9]  Anyway, using money did not solve the problem.  I know this much.

                The government and the nation were already living hand-to-mouth when the famines came.

                Then the riots started.[10]

                There was also the problem of the foreigners.  In the two hundred fifty years the Bakufu of the Tokugawa ruled the country, the rest of the world had apparently improved its military and sailing—and Japan had done nothing.  If the Bakufu closed its eyes to Japan's vulnerability, then the fall of China to the foreigners certainly opened their eyes.[11]  If that great empire had fallen to a foreign invasion, it stood to reason Japan might do so too.  Only fortune and divine interference had saved Japan in the last and only two threats of invasion by foreigners.[12]  The country would be outmatched if it happened again.

                I blame the Tokugawa Bakufu for leading Japan into this.  They certainly preserved order, but perhaps if they had allowed the Empire to be opened sooner…then so many would not have fought, killed, and died over what to do about Japan, about the foreigners…

Then maybe the Meiji government would not have come about so suddenly and violently.  Maybe they would not have forced the samurai aside.  Maybe most of them would not have decided to rebel and die a dog's death, turned on by their country, to make way for an army and navy full of conscripts.  [He explodes.]  CONSCRIPTS!

[Here he folds his arms and looks away in disgust.  He is silent before he speaks again, bitterly, furiously.][13]

Yes, they "gave" that power to His Augustness, but they were never truly obedient to him.  Yes, they caught Japan up to the rest of the world, all right.  But the new regime and their successors forgot their duty to the Emperor and to the Empire.  They grew crazy.  They went beyond our shores and destroyed people and cities who they said they were protecting and saving.[14]  It went to the point where their enemies had to resort to annihilating in Kikotei-style, not one, but two entire cities, killing everyone, to stop them.  TWO cities.  Crazy.  It was crazy.  They were crazy dangerous lunatics.  They did this publicly all in the name of the Emperor, disgracing His name, and then when it was all finally over…it just became worse.  Their foes forced Him to renounce His divinity, but they would not let Him take responsibility and retire, would not let Him be exiled, would not let Him be a true leader.  They, instead, would rule through Him and He would be their puppet.[15]  And no one wanted to take the blame for His Augustness.  No one would take responsibility, so in the end, no one knew whom to blame.  No one would apologize.  There was no leadership at all, no true general to speak up, to slit his belly in apology to the people and the foreigners.  And here is the Ningenkai, three generations later, and Japanese government still won't say a word about it.  People who weren't even born at the time are now thinking the Empire was being picked on without provocation.  No wonder the rest of the world is still angry.  No wonder they're so afraid and angry, with the Yojakai and the armors and that Kikotei still close by.  They probably think we are all crazy slaughterers, who just want to kill and destroy for the thrill of it…We could not wait to take over the Ningenkai to stop them…

                [He trails off, standing and trembling.  After a few minutes, he calms down, breathing hard, fists slowly unclenching, eyes dropping to the floor.  He mutters a reply to my question.]  No, I'm fine.  It's all right.  [He slowly sits back down, looks at the table.]

It's just that…sometimes…it seems we can never find the answer.

Well, after that disgraceful episode, of course, the country was going to rebuild.  What else is there to do?  So they rebuilt.  You would think that after all that happened, they would think of peace on the ashes of the war.  Well.  I guess they did.  You would think that would be the answer.  At least I thought so at the time.  But it seems Arago was right again.  This new generation was so intent on rebuilding, they never stopped.  They grew greedy, thinking of nothing but wealth.  They…they had forgotten their soul.[16]

[He is silent again, looking down in almost sad thought.  Again he speaks, most quietly.]

And so had we.

It's very different, living in a city.  There are so many people, but they are all strangers to each other.  And those tall buildings—I never realized it before, but people are walled in tiny rooms made of stone and cement and glass.  When I was a boy, I could walk down through the village and look into every house, say hello to almost every household.  Everyone knew everyone.  Here, they don't have to step outside, not even for water.  There's not much to see anyway…not a single tree or brook or field…Even the river is brown.  And murky.  During my stay there, the only thing to do was wake up, get dressed, eat alone, do the day's work, go home, eat alone, go to sleep.  I did that all alone, most of the time.  I never got to know anyone much.  The social order is based on wealth there…Maybe that's why the people only think of wealth and nothing else.  I was glad to come back to the Yojakai.

I wondered, when Sh'ten left us, just where he went.  He was certainly not in the Yojakai, and after Kayura brought the news that he had taken Kaos' place, I didn't think there was a place left in the Ningenkai where he could seek refuge.  On my trip, I thought a lot about him.  I wondered if he had walked the streets of Tokyo, like I did.  

Did he see what I saw?  Is that when he realized we were going about it all wrong?  

I thought about what he did in his career under Arago.  And about what I did under Arago's orders, too.  And why I had joined him in the first place.  When I went to visit the Ningenkai to pay my respects to my forebears, I knew the world had changed.  But as I passed over the Ningenkai, I was amazed by the amount of construction that had gone on.  Instead of rice paddies and fields, I see golf courses and train tracks.  And all this morning smog--Fuji-san can hardly be seen from the ground nowadays.  People are a part of nature, I know, but this seemed excessive.[17]  I should know.  Of course, it could be because Japan is still small, supporting a huge amount of people, now more so since everyone is living longer.

But I wonder, does this generation know what they're missing?  Yes, they make time for cherry-blossom viewing parties and autumn leaf excursions, but does anyone notice the disappearance of the crane[18]?  There's not much forest in Honshu left now.  Even Aokigahara[19] has been invaded by stalls and trinket sellers for pilgrims and tourists.

I wonder now, I worry…if the same things that happened in the Ningenkai will happen in the Yojakai.

[He looks down and frowns.]

Kayura-san will try to help the rest of us, as Sh'ten wished, but there is only so much she can do.  With Arago gone, there is no one authority at the top in the Yojakai.  Everyone will try to make his own destiny, as Sh'ten wanted us to do.  But…it will be hard.  It is already hard.

Freedom is hard.

[He is silent, and then he speaks slowly.]

But that is my duty. 

I am still a Kyushu _bushi_, like my forebears were before me.  I have never given up the pride of a bushi.

[He looks up.  His gaze is steady.]

I will not give up the responsibility of a bushi.

I will not lose faith.

And I will never lose my obedience.

I give you the word of a samurai:  _Bushi no ichi gon!_

Consider it done.

_End._

  


* * *

[1] The Uesugi were a samurai clan, descended from the Fujiwara, the first Regents of Japan during the Heian Period.  In the 14th century, the family held the post of vice-governor of Kamakura for the Ashikaga Shogunate.  When they were also awarded the post of Shogunal Deputy for the Kanto Plain in 1439, they split into two branches.  The Yamanouchi still governed Kamakura and the Ougigayatsu governed the Kanto Plain.  The Uesugi-Ougigayatsu branch died out in 1545 from war, and the Uesugi-Yamanouchi survived (notably under the leadership of Uesugi Kenshin) the Sengoku Period and into the present day.

[2]A _koku _is a unit of measurement, used especially for rice—it's the amount of rice needed to feed a man for one year.  It was standardized as the equivalent of 180 liters or 4.96 bushels (see The Meiji Restoration by W.G. Beasley, Stanford University Press, pg 428).  In the feudal days of Japan, when agriculture rather than industry was the basis of the economy, a fief's productivity and fertility was measured in terms of _koku_.  

[3] In the TV series episode 28, Kayura explained that countless humans over the past thousand years joined Arago.  If they were all planning to help take over the Ningenkai, they naturally would not have withheld their information on what was happening there.

[4] The fief and castle town of Yonezawa was transferred from the Date clan to the Uesugi clan for the Uesugi to live on.  Their revenue was also severely decreased, while the Date clan (being an ally of the Tokugawa) increased.

[5] Japanese word for Shogunate.

[6] For a more thorough and detailed explanation of the financial system, constraints, and disadvantages suffered by the samurai and the daimyo with regards to their fiefs' finances during the Tokugawa Shogunate, see The Meiji Restoration by Beasley, pgs. 41-53.

[7] Yamanouchi-sama is referring to Uesugi Yozan, aka Uesugi Harunori, who came from his native province in Kyushu to marry into the Uesugi Yamanouchi and head the clan in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  He is famous for his efforts to improve the finances and management of Yonezawa and his then-revolutionary outlook on civil service to the fief, which was necessitated by the financial environment mentioned in the above footnote.  JFK named him the greatest statesman of Edo Period Japan.

[8] In the late 18th century and during the first half of the 19th century, the peasant world was overburdened with providing for the needs of the increased population in a country where there was no emigration allowed for almost two hundred fifty years under Tokugawa law, and riots were getting more and more frequent.  This was due to the strains of the feudal financial system, that they, and the other social classes, were laboring under, as well as the threat of famine.  For more details, see Meiji 1868:  Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Japan by Paul Akamatsu, pgs 28-30, Harper & Row Publishers, 1972.

[9]Yamanouchi-sama made this statement in plain honesty, reflecting the nature of the times, and not because he lacked mental capacity in arithmetic.  He was thirteen when he left the Ningenkai and joined Arago, and it was not the fighting samurai's role to manage finances.  Even if it were, in the Edo Period, the exchange rates between the rice stipends samurai were paid and gold, silver, and copper money that were used to buy other goods, fluctated wildly from time to time and from region to region, and were terribly complicated, so much so, it became the specialty of merchants during the Tokugawa Shogunate.  (Beasley, pg 41.)

[10] Peasant revolts were numerous in the first half of the 19th century; but the most serious (instigated by townspeople and the educated middle-class) happened during the great famine years of 1832 to 1838.  As an example of how bad the famine was, the body count in some northern fiefs was estimated in tens of thousands; fifty two thousand people died between May and November of 1834 in a northern fief alone.  Epidemics, accelerated by hunger and weakness, and the crowded conditions people found themselves in after desperately migrating to the cities for food, certainly increased the death toll.  For a more detailed account of the serious nature of the situation and of the types of revolt that were beginning to occur, see Akamatsu, pgs 59-63.

[11] The Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60), where China was outarmed and defeated by the British who were looking to end Chinese-imposed restrictions on foreign trade.  China had to cede Hong Kong to the British and open several ports to British trade and residence.  This paved the way for other Western powers to do the same with China.  Several years later, the Second Opium War broke out, and China lost again, but not before the British and the French occupied Beijing and burned a palace; China was forced to make more concessions to the Western powers.  The Japanese did NOT want the same thing to happen to them.

[12] The Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281, coming from Mongol-conquered China, via the Korean Peninsula and across the Sea of Japan to the western shore of the nearest main island of Kyushu.  Both invasions were stopped at the western end of Kyushu, before the Mongols could establish a definitive foothold there.  The Mongols were driven back by samurai, who were aided by a thunderstorm in 1274, and by a typhoon (believed to be kami-sent) in 1281.

[13] One of the earliest declarations of the Meiji Period was to declare all under the Emperor equal; therefore the classes were abolished.  Until the Meiji Period, Japan's armies (for the Shogun and daimyo) were made up of professional soldiers and men dedicated to war (_bushi_).  One of the Meiji reforms was to abolish the fiefs' armies and to create a unified national army, trained and equipped in the Western military ways.  Therefore, general conscription was enforced.  Also, to enter the Shogun/Imperial Army was a privilege as well as a service, so the former bushi in command of the new army did not respond well at all to the fact that they would be training and commanding those not raised in the military class, and former commoners did not like being forced to enlist without any additional recompense or reward, when they might actually lose their lives fighting rebels and putting down revolts.  (Akatmatsu, pgs 256-257)

[14] In his book Inventing Japan:  1853-1964 (published by Random House, 2003, pgs 102-106), Ian Burama gives a thoughtful and brief summary, as well as motives and explanation, of the atrocities committed by the Japanese troops in the Nanking massacre of 1937 (and other Southeast Asian cities Japan invaded in World War II).  Incidentally, China is still waiting for an apology from the Japanese government, who has yet to even acknowledge the event as a war crime.

[15] General MacArthur felt the only way to legitimize the Allied Forces' rule and occupation of Japan right after World War II was by the Emperor's authority, which is why he insisted Hirohito stay on the throne, rather than abdicate and take responsibility for the war, as some members of the Imperial Family expected him to do.  (Burama, pg 141)

[16] In the first season of the TV series, and in Touma's part of the OAV Message, it was clearly stated the prosperity of the era and its effects on the population's spirituality (ie materialism) discouraged them from following and practicing the virtues, which drew the Arago and the Yojakai to the Ningenkai.

[17] In the Japanese aesthetic, people are a part of nature and not separate from it.  So they see no contradictions in enjoying nature in a manicured, extensively trimmed garden, or a bonsai tree, artificially shaped in a certain way by its pruner.

[18] The Japanese crane--an old and traditional symbol of long life and peace.  Also now an endangered species, they were once widespread all over Japan.  As of 1998, there were only about 600 known cranes in Japan, and that was due to conservation and breeding efforts.

[19] Aokigahara, literally "The Sea of Trees", is the forest surrounding Mt Fuji and where Nasutei and the Troopers found the Soul Swords of Fervor in the second season.  According to Tokyo:  An Inside Guide, 2001 3rd Edition, the region around Fuji-san is designated a national park, but due to rather weak laws protecting the nature of the park from commercial activities, it could be considered a nature amusement park. (pg 269).


End file.
